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Border War Campaign Part 13

Our group finally got together again after over a month away due to holidays and schedule conflicts. Admittedly, we goofed off quite a bit and didn't get much done in game. On top of this, we were missing Wataru's player due to prior commitments. To make up for this, I did some additional story development via online chat with him. Details of Wataru's background are coming back to haunt him, so to speak.

Also, it bears repeating that Ominous Whispers is blind and can only "see" through the use of an artifact blindfold. With it, she can distinguish the energy of life, Essence, and uses it to function normally. Each individual she sees has a distinct "color" to their Essence, and her familiarity with seeing in this way gives her the ability to sense what type of energy she is seeing (natural, spiritual, death-tainted, etc.). With that in mind, we return to the showdown at the Council Hall, in media res.

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Ambushed by Whispers' attack, the Abyssal fell on the spot. She watched as his Essence dissipated, shifted from the general shape of a man to an amorphous cloud and drifted backwards through the Council Hall doorway and into the shadowland. His sword and breastplate remained on the ground where he had fallen. Her intense focus was almost her undoing, as a hidden archer loosed an arrow at her from the doorframe of the Hall. Whispers realized what she had thought was the Abyssal was, in fact, a decoy wearing the Abyssal's armor and carrying his sword. The last Abyssal was still alive.

The two exalts continued their standoff while the undead forces spread forward into the city. Their hunger for living flesh and blood drove them to seek out the remaining citizens, the army they had been sent to kill mysteriously absent. In the streets, Willow and Wataru fought them alongside the mortals. Soon, they were re-joined by Gaias and Rami and made quick work of the shambling corpses and hungry ghosts. But a bright light at the Hall drew their attention, and they went to investigate.

The party came upon Ominous Whispers, who had managed to draw out the Abyssal, injure him, and pin him down on the roof of the Hall. Willow used her own Essence sight ability to gather the gist of the situation. Satisfied that Whispers had the everything under control, Willow decided to investigate the interior of the Hall to look for the glowing light that Gaias had seen the night before. The Abyssal sensed an advantage and moved to enter the Hall through a window and capture Willow. Whispers countered his plan, striking at him with her knife by ricocheting it off a neighboring roof. The Abyssal, on death's door, crashed to the ground at Willow's feet.

Willow, a master healer, was able to stabilize the Abyssal handily.

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Beyond this point, all actions not taken by Wataru are subject to change, as they were made by me in an online chat with Wataru's player at a later time.
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The major combatants neutralized, the party could begin to take care of normal business. Gaias left to sweep the city for remaining undead while Rami helped Whispers down from the rooftops and escorted her back to her room at the tea house. After stabilizing the Abyssal, Willow and Wataru took him back to the inn and laid him out next to his dead partner in Willow's room. Wataru tied him up and decided to maintain a guard over him while Willow and her maid left to further investigate the Hall and assist the remaining townsfolk.

Wataru's vigil was interrupted by a knock on the door and someone speaking the name that he was known by in the life he left behind years ago: Nomora Kageto. When he opened the door, he saw the woman he loved and whom he believed he had killed. The woman, Crystal Bay, revealed that she was also an exalt and had been searching for him. She performed a ritual to remove his curse and forgive him of the crimes he had supposedly committed ... crimes she said he was innocent of. Wataru, now Kageto again, renounced his previous duties as Willow's bodyguard and swore he would remain with Crystal Bay.